FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Will Red Mage be just like astrologian? A fusion between SMN & Blm.

[Joe_Schmoe]

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Will Red Mage be just like astrologian? A fusion between SMN & Blm.

I hope not. I wish they'd make them like feral druids and enhancement shamans are in WoW, melee DPSers that can also heal and do caster DPS as well. The problem with that is that I think all the other classes have all the other elements covered, so I'm not sure what they can give to red mages without being redundant. A spot of bother it seems.

[TheCurls]

What I'd like to see out of Red Mage is a melee/ranged physical/magic hybrid DPS job that stance dances to swap between the two.

[LunarEmerald]

Red Mage should be a melee dps that does magical damage instead of physical. It would help balance physical and magical and give more support for foe requiem over hypercharge (nobody uses bishop outside aoes)

[SaitoHikari]

I'd imagine a Red Mage in this game would be designed around a 'Double Cast' mechanic, something they're known for in some FF games. The main thing is how to translate that into FFXIV.

In my mind, I imagine Red Mage to be primarily a melee DPS that is hybrid magic and physical, but also uses skill speed instead of spell speed. Their weaponskills would be primarily physical sword techniques, with the major twist being that their magic spells would be off-GCD abilities that are instant cast. So imagine an instant cast Cure, Blizzard, Fire, Thunder, etc. But because they're instant cast and off-GCD, their cooldowns are obviously much higher than what the original classes have (something like 10-20 seconds each), and they also don't gain any of the trait bonuses from the other mages (such as Astral Fire stacks). They still take MP (to balance out the way Double Cast would work).

The main gimmick is that using Double Cast would let you use one of the spell abilities once without it going on CD, AND it would also enhance your next GCD sword skill. Double Cast for this purpose should have an off-GCD of 5 seconds.

- Double Cast Cure: Next sword technique restores your HP by 50% of damage inflicted.
- Double Cast Fire: Next sword technique inflicts 30% more damage and restores TP by 100.
- Double Cast Blizzard: Next sword technique inflicts Heavy on the enemy and restores your MP by 15% of max.
- Double Cast Lightning: Next sword technique inflicts a DoT, potency of 40 over 25 seconds.
- Double Cast Aero: Next sword technique has its range extended to 15 yalms, and skill speed is boosted by 10% for the next 15 seconds.
- Double Cast Stone: Next sword technique stuns.

(Previously I thought of ACTUAL spell combinations like having a double cast blizzard + aero result in a sword attack that inflicts both heavy and deals more damage against enemies that are heavied at once, but while it sounded amazing at first, I eventually decided it'd be way too clunky to work out in the end...)

Their primary stat however would be Dexterity (though it would contribute to boosting magic attack instead). They'd also use Scouting gear. Cross-classes would actually be Bard and Monk.

RDM would also have two stances, one stance making their Intellect the same as their Dexterity, the other doing the same for Mind instead. There'd be some abilities that let the RDM throw out their spells with no MP cost, another that doubles the effects of their Double Cast techniques, one ability that upgrades their spells to the II version, and an ability that lets them repeatedly use Double Cast without it going on CD.

[Cherie]

After having this same discussion with a friend of mine for like 2 hours straight, the best we could agree on given how FFXIV works was:

It's probably going to be a dps. It's probably going to melee most of the time and have a 1-2-3 type combo like every other melee job in the game(with branching paths) likely with a fencer's foil. You'll probably buff your weapon with a enspell of some kind, of which you may or may not be able to do on the fly (maybe out of combat?). To use magic, it seemed like you'd have to complete melee combos to gain some sort of "stacks" in which you could use to perform spell-like attacks (probably this is why you enspell your weapon first and maybe what you choose to enspell with will govern what magic type you can use with your stacks). There may be some kind of threshold where the stacks will "cap" at that point you can do a "stronger" version of the spells you do normally. What spells do you get? Probably mostly attack spells but maybe also support spells. Bards never got any kind of aoe heal song of any kind (even though the trainer NPC uses one in combat) so it's hard to say if redmage will get a regen of anykind. Of all the spells you do get, dots and refresh seem the most likely to me. It will probably be the strongest of the 3 support jobs in dps but weakest in support (since it isn't 'on demand' and needs some kind of combo to initiate, it's refresh ability might even be stronger than a bards but you can't just spam it). Everyone loves 3s so this adds a trinity of support jobs (tanks=3, healers=3, etc). Also, it being a "melee" support would be a answer to all the salt of people wanting to be support but not wanting to be a "bow mage" and adds variety. Also, if the enspell mechanic worked like i described, if your pug group has like 3 bards already maybe you enspell with a attack only enspell and just focus on doing damage with no support spells available.

My friend and I both had radically different ideas though, thats just were some that he didn't seem to think were total crap of mine(and believe me, some of my ideas were total crap, and given these im presenting aren't that great either, you have some idea of how bad some of mine were...lol) :P Take with a grain of salt. It's just me trying to make it fit into FFXIV mechanics which obviously RDM is such a capable job that it's not going to fit without missing many things.

[Altanas]

I put this in a joke thread, but it mimics what is said above. The fusion of a melee and mage sounds a lot better for a spell blade than fusing two mage jobs together:

The base class of Fencer is categorised as a Disciple of War
The job of Red Mage is categorised as a Disciple of Magic.
We hope this will solidify Red Mage's Front Row role as a spellblade! In the circumstances, Red Mage shall be classed as a DPS.
Red Mage shall have native access to Conjurer and Thamaturge spells in addition to Red Mage unique spells and abilities!
Unlike other Mages, Red Mage's spells are all instant cast. However, spells are usable only as part of a Combo Action or as a Closer
Similar to Mudra inputs, depending on the combo utilised spells and actions may take on alternative forms and effects such as buffs, debuffs, and area of effect enhancements.

[Kotemon]

Dunno if they made RDM physically stronger in the remakes(never did a 4RDM party on the NES version), but I've done a couple RDM parties with the PS remakes. Yeah, aside from the skills not being the same as the full Fighter/White Mage/Black Mage it was fairly decent. Though, again, single player games. Heck, you could go almost full attack with a WHITE MAGE/WIZARD...

It was not easy especially with only a few good stuff to equip across the board so to many duplicate jobs would not be top tier. The best I could recall setting all characters as the same class was akin playing in hard or ex mode.

I discovered after a long time of rarely making it to the end and fighting the boss. You can 1 shot Chaos with BRAK.

[Duelle]

If RDM could pull off everything (not just the 25m raid-apt components, but everything) that Rets and Enhance could historically do, I'd be pretty okay with that. But XIV being as it's been, without some change in mentality, I doubt we'll be seeing any off-healing (which still hit for a ton in WoD), DPS-taunts, focused suppression, etc. And that would be really disappointing, imo, to leave those less role-locked parts of RDM behind. I'd rather RDM being itself be the excuse to experiment with an otherwise stale mold.

Well, we do have to keep the 18-ability limit for abilities gained through leveling. Also the fact that every melee needs to have combos (as opposed to Rets which had only Crusader Strike/Divine Storm/Exorcism and Shaman with Lava Lash/Stormstrike/Maelstrom Weapon procs).

Off-heals are a given on RDM; it is, after all, the original hybrid of the FF series and there's ways to implement heals into the job without making it overpowered. Make the heals inconvenient to cast and present risk to the RDM and you'd force them to make a decision. If you tie it to a proc (see my suggestion in my sig), even better because then you're including the choice between dealing magic damage or using the proc to heal someone.

Buffs are limited, partly because SE decided to blend stat buffs into party bonuses (because they want to encourage party diversity). Otherwise I could also see RDMs having stuff along the lines of old school Blessing of Might or Strength of Earth totem. Granted, in the current game it'd make RDM required unless you gave other jobs the ability to provide those stat buffs as well. On the other hand, I wouldn't want RDM to be there only because of buffs or some other gimmick like it was in FFXI.

If you're thinking of stuff like Seal of Light/Judgment of Light (which healed party members that attacked the mob with the debuff), the old blessings (Protection, Sacrifice, Sanctuary) or even really crazy stuff like Divine Intervention, I'll admit that's going a bit too far.

[RocheKat]

Why would it be SMN + BLM?

I would bet money on RDM being the Melee answer to BRD and MCH. Why? Closest thing we have to Jack of all trades currently is Brd and Mch. There is no melee that can buff even close to the way those two can so those of us that like support melee don't have a real option atm.

[hagare]

I want a magic swordsman slinging spells and cutting stuff from close range